325/366 White saddles

20 Friday Nov 2020

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British fungi, Helvella crispa, saddle fungi, White saddle

I was checking fallen leaves in a woodland clearing when I noticed something white poking through the leaves, a lucky break as it’s easy to miss these lovely little fungi. I had to clear away leaves to get these photos, but then mostly covered them up again.

201120 white saddle (1)

These are typical examples of White saddle (Helvella crispa), one of several species of ‘saddle’ fungi you can find in woodlands, these particular saddles growing most often where there are Beech trees.

201120 white saddle (2)

According to the First Nature website, ‘Helvella is an ancient term for an aromatic herb. The specific epithet crispa comes from Latin and means curled or wrinkled – a reference to the contorted cap or saddle’.

324/366 Simply red

19 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, fungi, leaves, nature, plants

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autumn colour, colour red, red fruit, red fungi, red leaves, red stems

Stop! Danger! With green, Christmas. Anger (seeing red). Passion (red hot). And, in Nature, red leaves, red breasts (though I’ve always thought of the Robin as more of an orange breast), red fungi, red fruit, red feathers, red eyes…. Here’s a selection of reds from my recent meanders.

323/366 Seedheads, 5

18 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, plants, wildflowers

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Tags

plant seeds, seed photographs, seed quotations, seedheads, seeds, wildflower seeds

If all seeds that fall were to grow, then no one could follow
the path under the trees. ~ Nigerian proverb

201118 seedheads (1) 201118 seedheads (2) 201118 seedheads (3) 201118 seedheads (4)

322/366 Leaf mines: Phytomyza agromyzina

17 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, insects, leaves, plants

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Cornus sanguinea, Dogwood, fly leaf mines, leaf mines, leaf mines on Dogwood, leaf-mining fly larvae, leaf-mining larvae, leafminers, Phytomyza agromyzidae

So far, in my recent posts on leaf mines, I’ve only covered a few of the many micro moths whose larvae make mines in leaves. But many fly species also inhabit leaves in their larval stage, and today’s post is about one of those, Phytomyza agromyzina.

201117 Phytomyza agromyzina (1)

You will probably never see the tiny adult fly (and, in fact, I haven’t even been able to find an illustration of one online, though this Wiki page shows an example of one member of the Agromyzidae fly family, which will give you a general idea.) but, anytime between July and November, you should be able to find its larvae’s leaf mines, as it’s probably widespread in Britain (though under-recorded, so if you do find some, please record your sighting).

The mines I’ve found have all been on the leaves of Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea), though it is known to mine other species of Cornus. They’re gallery mines (i.e. forming corridors), long and meandering through the upper side of the leaf surface, and almost completely filled with frass (i.e. poo).

201117 Phytomyza agromyzina (4)

The UK Fly Mines website provides more detailed information on this, and the many other types of leaf mines you can find in Britain.

321/366 Springtails and slime

16 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in fungi, insects

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Comatricha nigra, Comatricha slime mould, Dicyrtomina saundersi, fungi on rotting wood, Neanura muscorum, slime, slime mould, springtail, Trichia persimilis, Trichia slime mould

Springtails and slime, a colourful combination, currently to be found on and under many old branches and rotting logs, in a saturated woodland near you, right now!

201116 springtails and slime (1)

The orange slime is probably one of the Trichia species, possibly Trichia persimilis, and the white blobs on black sticks are one of the Comatricha species, perhaps Comatricha nigra.

201116 springtails and slime (2)

And the springtails? The brownish one with the hairy bottom is likely to be Dicyrtomina saundersi, and the blue-grey-coloured ones may be Neanura muscorum, but my photos are not good enough to make positive identifications.

201116 springtails and slime (3)

320/366 Zigzag flowers

15 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, wildflowers

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autumn colour, British wildflowers, Penarth zigzag path, wildflowers in bloom, Zigzag path, Zigzag path wildflowers

I haven’t checked what’s flowering along the local zigzag path for a while so I thought I’d take a look for this week’s Sunday wildflower post and #wildflowerhour on social media. Imagine my delight when I found these 14 species: Ragwort, Cinquefoil (a nice surprise), Creeping thistle, Hedge bindweed, Meadow crane’s-bill (which is doing really well since the Council stopped cutting the vegetation on this site), Common vetch, Red clover, Bramble species, Herb Robert, Field scabious, Tufted vetch (nice to see the two vetches in bloom), Winter helleborine (another nice, unexpectedly early surprise) [ed. heliotrope, not helleborine – thanks, Vicky!], Black medick, and Meadow buttercup.

319/366 Current critters

14 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, insects, spiders

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Araneus diadematus, British insects, Chrysoperla carnea, Common wasp, earwig, Garden spider, Lacewing, Vespula vulgaris

Just a few of the little critters I’ve come across this week …

201114 lacewing

I can’t be entirely sure but this is probably Chrysoperla carnea, Britain’s most common Lacewing. Their transparent wings lend these creatures a fragile air so I was surprised to see one still out and about as these Lacewings usually find a cosy spot indoors to hibernate come the autumn weather.

I think these are Common wasps (Vespula vulgaris) that I’m seeing frequently on and around Ivy, and basking in our rare glimpses of sunshine, but I don’t have any face-on shots to properly separate them from German wasps (Vespula germanica). At this time of year, these are likely to be male wasps, which apparently are not able to sting – only female queens and workers have the anatomy for that.

201114 earwig

We saw Earwigs hiding in umbellifer seedheads in a recent post (Insecting, 31 October). It seems they like to hide, though I’m not sure how effective this earwig’s hiding place is, its head tucked into a gorse seed but the length of its body exposed. Still, I doubt anyone – insect, bird or human – was going to argue with those pincers.

Spiders have been much in evidence lately. Garden spiders (Araneus diadematus) sit ready to pounce in their strategically strung webs, and, in the right photo, I only spotted the tiny, unidentified spider lurking under the Creeping thistle flower when I got home and started looking through my photos.

318/366 Peeling oysterlings

13 Friday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, fungi

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British fungi, Crepidotus mollis, oysterling fungi, Peeling oysterling

Oyster and oysterling fungi can be difficult to identify but I’m fairly sure these are Peeling oysterlings (Crepidotus mollis).

Habitat: ‘usually grouped on decayed wood of deciduous trees, especially Ash and Beech.’ Check.

201113 peeling oysterling (2)

Gills: ‘radiating outwards; greyish brown with a reddish tint and mid-brown spore print’. Check.

201113 peeling oysterling (3)

Cap: ‘flat, oyster-shaped or elongated and laterally attached to substrate’. And the clincher: ‘a peelable cap cuticle’. Check.

Information from my trusty Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms & Toadstools, Paul Sterry & Barry Hughes, Collins, London, 2009.

317/366 Colour it bramble

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, leaves, plants

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autumn colour, bramble, Bramble autumn colour, bramble leaves

Bramble: rambling over fences and through hedgerows, its flowers and fruit provide nourishment to insects, mammals and birds for much of the year; its leaves are home to leaf-mining moths and a multitude of other invertebrates; and, in the autumn, bramble colours our world with a burst of golden yellows, brilliant crimsons, burnt oranges and scarlet reds. What a plant!

316/366 Green islands

11 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, insects, trees

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beech, gall causing midge, galls on Beech, green islands, green islands on Beech leaves, Hartigiola annulipes, leaf mines, leaf mines on Beech, Stigmella tityrella

It’s late autumn, nearly winter, and, as you would expect, the leaves on this Beech tree have all now changed from vivid summer green to autumn brown … or have they? If you look more closely at this image, you’ll notice that some of the leaves have what entomologists, moth-ers and others in the know call ‘green islands’.

201111 green islands on beech

Butterfly Conservation’s Associate Director of Recording and Monitoring Richard Fox explained the reason for this most succinctly in a recent post on Twitter: ‘Thanks to Wolbachia bacteria in its body, the caterpillar uses cytokinin to maintain a green island of plant tissue in which it can feed in autumn.’

201111 green island stigmella tityrella (2)

201111 green island stigmella tityrella (1)

Fox was referring to leaf-mining moth caterpillars, like the Stigmella tityrella moth larvae that produced the mines in the leaves shown above, but other insects also manipulate the physiology of leaves so they can continue feeding. Another example from the same Beech tree can be seen below – here the larvae of the gall-inducing midge Hartigiola annulipes have also caused green islands to form in the leaves.

201111 Hartigiola annulipes green islands (1)